DEATH SENTENCE SPLITS IRAQ / U.S. POLITICAL FALLOUT: GOP hopes verdict will help its chances; Dems say it won't

Edward Epstein, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Published
4:00 am PST, Monday, November 6, 2006

2006-11-06 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- Republicans led by President Bush hope the Saddam Hussein death sentence handed down Sunday will boost their chances of holding on to Congress in Tuesday's election, but Democrats say the verdict won't sway voters and independent analysts say it will have only a marginal impact.

On his way from his Texas ranch to last-minute campaign stops for Republican congressional candidates in the usually staunchly GOP states of Nebraska and Kansas, Bush hailed the verdict against the ousted Iraqi dictator handed down by a court in Baghdad.

"Saddam Hussein's trial is a milestone in the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law," the president said on the tarmac at the airport in Waco, Texas, with Air Force One in the background.

"Iraq has a lot of work ahead," the president conceded two days before midterm elections in which public discontent over his Iraq policies has emerged as a major reason that Democrats are expected to make major gains, especially in the House. But he added in comments carried live on the three 24-hour cable news networks, "History will record today's judgment as an important achievement."

The latest CNN poll showed that 38 percent of Americans approve of Bush's handling of the 44-month-old Iraq war while 59 percent disapprove.

In another finding, only 8 percent said Bush's current strategy in Iraq should be maintained.

The president, who spoke for only two minutes before jetting off to a rally in Nebraska, didn't address the political ramifications of Hussein's sentence of death by hanging for crimes against humanity in the 1982 killings of 148 people in the Shiite town of Dujail.

Bush's aides denied that the verdict was timed to come down just before Tuesday's elections. The Iraqi court had announced several days ago that the verdict would come Sunday and White House spokesman Tony Snow said it was preposterous to think the verdict's timing was manipulated.

Like Bush, Snow hailed the ruling. "You can't have a democracy without a rule of law, and you can't have a rule of law unless people realize the law is going to be imposed on everybody, the powerful and the weak," he said.

Final polling shows key races for the Senate, in which Republicans hold a six-seat edge, are close, which means the Hussein verdict could be a factor if it influences the undecided voters. Polls show Democrats are likely to win more than the 15 seats they need to take control of the House.

Democrats also praised the sentence, but said it wouldn't make people feel better about Bush's Iraq policy heading into their voting booths.

"The only thing that will affect the election is if the president understands we need a change of strategy" in Iraq, said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democrats' Senate campaign.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco praised the Iraqi people on the trial's outcome, but added in a statement, "It remains to be seen whether the results of the trial will have any effect in ending the civil war that now engulfs Iraq.

"The failure of President Bush and his administration to have a plan in place before the war started to complete the mission successfully was a disservice to our troops and has come at a huge cost in casualties suffered."

More than 2,700 American service personnel have been killed in the war.

Bush, traveling in Nebraska on behalf of a GOP candidate for a House seat that Republicans have held since 1958, said the verdict showed his decision to go to war was correct.

"Saddam Hussein was a threat," Bush said. "My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision and the world is better off for it."

Former Democratic Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia said the death sentence would make no difference and predicted more violence.

"Well, you can hang Saddam Hussein from the rooftops, but it's not changing the situation on the ground, except to make 2 million Sunnis more mad against Americans and against Shiites," Cleland told CNN's "Late Edition."

Political analyst Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia said the verdict could alter a few close races. "It may have a marginal impact," he said. "It may get some demoralized Republicans to the polls" and influence some still-undecided voters.

He said the verdict might mean an extra percentage point or two for some GOP candidates, enough to "bring back a seat or two" in the House that Republicans had expected to lose and could affect close Senate races like those in Montana, Missouri or Virginia.

"But it doesn't change the basic drift. This is a Democratic year," Sabato said.

Last-minute news that affects U.S. elections has become a recurring event. Republicans are convinced that late news in 2000 of Bush's old drunken driving arrest cost him many votes. In 2004, Osama bin Laden's appearance on a videotape in the campaign's last weekend may have helped Bush defeat Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

But the Hussein sentence won't have nearly such an impact, said political scientist Jack Pitney of Claremont College.

"I don't think this is going to change many minds about the Iraq war. People skeptical about the war will still be skeptical," he said, adding that Republicans could even be hurt by the verdict if violence spikes in Iraq before polls close on Tuesday.